NOTE: I am not trying to say I want San Francisco to blow up! The Bay Area is my home and I love it. This is JUST a visual effects and compositing experiment!

Its been a while since I made an effects shot so I wanted to have a go at it. I took the two atomic blasts from the closing sequence of Terminator 3 and overlayed them on a shot of San Francisco viewed from the Marin Headlands on Vimeo. I know that it isnt great, but Im stoked that it turned out as well as it did considering this took me about six hours to do all the matte key-framing.

Its basically an overly artsy look at the notion of San Francisco and Oakland getting bombed in a nuclear war.

The shot was inspired by the opening of Linkin Parks 'A Thousand Suns' album, which you hear as the soundtrack in this video. The music features the voice of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the 'father of the atomic bomb.'

Some things I hope to improve:1. Use motion tracking to match the San Francisco plate with the camera shake from the Terminator atomic blasts shot,2. Employ a bit of 3-D modeling to make the Golden Gate bridge appear to actually blown apart from the blast wave (instead of simply disintegrating away - although my friend said that might actually be correct because of the heat generated by two atomic blasts).3. Find a better shot of the same view of SF from the headlands. This one is gorgeous but it was someones time-lapse shot so I had to slow it down and you can see the cars moving across the bridge in STOP-MOTION. Hahaha.4. Maybe even use my own CG nuclear blasts if I learn how to make them!

Please give me some constructive suggestions to make it look cooler and more scientifically accurate!

Clip from Terminator Salvation- now available on DVD from Warner Brothers Video. WS Directors Cut 2 Discs Includes Digital Copy Blu ray No infringement intended- for editorial use only.See more Terminator news at http://sarahconnorsociety.com